Generally, engines running on gaseous fuel such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) employ a double walled fuel rail system in order to comply to safety regulations concerning engines with gaseous fuel systems. A leak detection process for such a double walled fuel rail system is a time intensive process requiring disassembly of the complete fuel rail system from the engine.
For example, in order to find a leak within the fuel rail system, the leak detection process would include disassembly of a section of the fuel rail system. Another section of the fuel rail system that may remain on the engine may be sealed and pressurized. In a situation, when the pressure within the remaining section may drop over a period of time, an additional section of the fuel rail system may have to be disassembled. Another section of the fuel rail system remaining on the engine may have to be pressure tested again until the section having the leak may be identified.
Such leak detection process may have a potential of introducing another leak within the fuel rail system due to the required disassembly of each section of the fuel rail system. As a result, every section of the fuel rail system that may be disassembled may have to be carefully reassembled with appropriate seals, and may have to be tested again after reassembly in order to check for a new leak that may have been introduced due to the leak detection process. Hence, there is a need for an improved tool and method for detecting the leak within the double walled fuel rail system.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,997,715 describes a fuel system for supplying fuel to an internal combustion engine. The engine includes a fuel system having a connector for connecting a single-walled high pressure common rail to a double-walled fuel line segment, and a fluid containment system. Each embodiment includes drain plumbing having a leakage drain connector that may be used to provide an interface between a single-walled high pressure common rail and a double-walled high pressure fuel line segment, and also provide part of a low pressure passage fluidly connected with a low pressure passage of the double-walled high pressure fuel line segment. The drain plumbing may also provide an interface with a low pressure fuel drain line fluidly coupled to a leakage detector.